Tag Archives: Film

Dirty Looks: Have you ever seen a transsexual before? Videos by Chris E. Vargas

Tuesday, February 26, 2013
9:00 pm
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avene (at 2nd Street)
New York, NY 10003
Tickets: $10.00
Tickets

CHRIS E. VARGAS In Attendance!

Dirty Looks returns from their West Coast roadshow, screening the first-ever retrospective program of work by Bay Area artist, Chris E. Vargas!!

Perhaps best known as one half of the web series “Falling in Love … with Chris and Greg,” a sitcom about a queer odd couple — one liberal, one radical; one transgender, one not — Vargas has produced a body of work that is politically subversive, culturally acute and utterly hysterical. From post-apocalyptic LA bikers to “the first pregnant man,” Liberace to Bronski Beat, these works challenge the homonormative, queering pop culture and rewriting GLBTQ histories.

PROGRAM:
Road Rash, Super8 on video, 6min., 2003
Homotopia (with Eric Stanley), digital video, 26min., 2006
Falling in Love… With Chris and Greg: Work of Art! Reality TV Special, digital video, 23min., 2008
Extraordinary Pregnancies, digital video, 10min., 2010
Have You Ever Seen a Transsexual Before?, digital video, 4 min., 2010
Liberaceón, digital video, 16min., 2011
ONE for all…, digital video, 7min., 2012
CRY BOY CRY, digital video, 5min., 2012

Beginning with Vargas’s first Super8 film, this program will explore the artist’s penchant for humorous impersonations and socio-political reinterpretations. Homotopia finds Vargas collaborating with Eric Stanley on a narrative short, in which radical queers crash the hypocritical wedding ceremony of a recent tearoom trick. Extraordinary Pregnancies explores the transphobic discourses parlayed through the media firestorm that surrounded the world’s first pregnant man, Thomas Beatie. In the video from which this program takes its title, Vargas enlightens various American landmarks with his trans body, begging of them the question, “Have You Ever Seen a Transsexual Before?” In both ONE for all... and Liberaceón, the artist portrays historically queer public figures (philanthropist Reed Erickson and mister showmanship, Liberace), rearticulating (rather comically) these icons relationships to queer politics and philosophical standpoints within their respective epochs. And, in the recent episode of “Falling in Love... with Chris and Greg”: Season Two, Chris and Greg compete against fellow artists to create the perfect work of queer failure, inserting themselves in Bravo’s reality TV show, “Work of Art.” Hint, it does not end well.

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Queer Art Film: Geo Wyeth Presents “The Brother From Another Planet”

Monday, February 18
8:00 pm
IFC Center
323 6th Ave (at W. 3rd St.)
New York, NY

Purchase Tickets Here: http://bit.ly/Vs7ZXw

Introduced by Geo Wyeth! 35mm print

John Sayles’s comedy gives a smart, political edge to the oft-told “stranger in a strange land” sci-fi story with African-American actor Joe Morton as “The Brother”, an alien stranded in New York City. Chased by two white Men in Black, he must also negotiate a myriad of class and racial challenges. The film’s connection between “alienness” and “blackness” resonated strongly with musician and performer Geo Wyeth (who released his first studio album, Alien Tapes): “I wish I had seen this as a teenager… If you have ever felt your own body permeating unseen dimensions or worlds, unreachable by language or logical perception, you will connect to this film.”

R, 108 Minutes
USA, 1984

As always, the screening will be followed by drinks and discussion at Julius Bar (159 West 10th St. at Waverly), the oldest gay bar in New York City!

UPCOMING FILMS:

MARCH 18: My Barbarian presents
ASHIK KERIB (1988, Sergei Parajanov)

APRIl 15: Yoruba Richen presents
SET IT OFF (1996, F. Gary Gray)

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Dirty Looks Selects: The First 25 Years of MIX NYC

Part One: Thursday, November 15, 7:00 pm
Part Two: Friday, November 16, 6:00 pm

Next week, Dirty Looks will collaborate with MIX NYC, the New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film/Video Festival, in celebration of their 25th anniversary. Dirty Looks Selects: The First 25 Years of MIX NYC culls from a quarter century of MIX programming to present two evenings of cutting-edge queer experimental film and video.

Part One: Fertile Feelings presents MIX high points from 1987 to 1999, featuring work by Glenn Belverio, Carl Michael George, Barbara Hammer, K8 Hardy, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Jim Hubbard, Tom Kalin, Charles Lofton, John “Quasi” O’Shea and Vaginal Davis, Candy Pauker and Bruce La Bruce, Jill Reiter, Jerry Tartaglia, Phil Zwickler and David Wojnarowicz.

Part Two: Living Trough Oblivion takes us through the 21st century, with film and video from Nao Bustamante and Matt Johnstone, Gina Carducci and Matilda Bernstein Sycamore, Tom Chomont, Peter Cramer and Jack Waters, Cody Critcheloe, Cecilia Dougherty, Glen Fogel, Samara Halperin, William E. Jones, Jonesy, and Matt Wolf.

For more information visit dirtylooksnyc.org.

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Looking for Langston + Tongues Untied

Mon, Oct 15, 2012
4:30 pm & 9:30 pm
BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11217
General Admission: $12
BAM Cinema Club Members: $7
Stuents/Seniors: $9
(Students 29 and under with a valid ID, Mon—Thu)
Tickets

BAM Cinematek’s series Born in Flames: New Queer Cinema presents a double bill featuring “Tongues Untied” and “Looking For Langston.”  Both films deal with questions of black gay identity and sexuality in their very own special way. What they share is their attempt to make black gay culture and life visible, using very unconventional and associative forms of narration, both working a lot with poetry and texts of black poets such as Essex Hemphill (both) and Bruce Nugent (Looking For Langston).

“Tongues Untied” was released in 1989 and is a semi-documentary reflection on the status of black men and transgender people within the gay community of the late eighties by director, writer and activist Marlon Riggs. The film depicts the Riggs experiences as a gay man in a very creative, unique way and addresses questions of racism, inequality and HIV/AIDS while showing a lot of footage of black gay culture of the time.

“Looking For Langston”, also from 1989, is director Issac Julien’s tribute to American poet and writer Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement of the New York of the 20s and 30s. The film isn’t really a biography, but a beautiful, sensual contemplation on Hughes live in the 20s, his sexuality and his desires as a gay man, while at the same time trying to reflect the desires of black gay men in a more general way.


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She Said Boom: The Story of Fifth Column

Xtra catches up with Kevin Hegge, Director of She Said Boom: The Story of Fifth Column. She Said Boom has its world premiere at the 2012 Hot Docs Film Festival.


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United In Anger

July 6 – 12, 2012
1:00, 3:00, 5:30, 7:40, & 10:00 pm Daily
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th Street
New York, New York 10011
$11.00 / $8.00 (child, senior)
Tickets

UNITED IN ANGER: A HISTORY OF ACT UP is a unique feature-length documentary that combines startling archival footage that puts the audience on the ground with the activists and the remarkably insightful interviews from the ACT UP Oral History Project to explore ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) from a grassroots perspective – how a small group of men and women of all races and classes, came together to change the world and save each other’s lives.

The film takes the viewer through the planning and execution of a half dozen exhilarating major actions including Seize Control of the FDA, Stop the Church, and Day of Desperation, with a timeline of many of the other zaps and actions that forced the U.S. government and mainstream media to deal with the AIDS crisis. UNITED IN ANGER reveals the group’s complex culture – meetings, affinity groups, and approaches to civil disobedience mingle with profound grief, sexiness, and the incredible energy of ACT UP. (Running time 1:33)

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Dirty Looks: On Location

Dirty Looks: On Location is a month-long series of queer interventions in New York City spaces. Over the course of July, artist film and video will appear in these queer social spaces and former sites of queer sociality (like shuttered bars, bathhouses and former meeting zones). A new piece, a different setting on each night of July.  Full details at dirtylooksnyc.org.

1 Participant Inc | 253 E. Houston Street | 8-10PM
Unauthorized Interviews, Tara Mateik– A live re-performance of an interview between Jane Pauley, Steve Rubell, Michael Jackson and Liza Minnelli, as embodied by Mateik, K8 Hardy and friends.

2 The Blue | 206 8th Avenue | 4PM – 4AM
Limpia, Juan Betancurth – The perversification of everyday objects.

3 Rockbar | 185 Christopher Street | 8:30PM

Stop the Movie (Cruising), Jim Hubbard + Sodom, Luther Price – Footage of the West Village demonstrations in of William Friedkin’s Cruising becomes a meditation on activism itself. Meanwhile, Price mixes nostalgia and horror, using 70s Super-8 porn, into an elegiac landscape of desire and violence.

4 GYM Sportsbar | 167 8th Avenue | 9PM
Star Spangled Basher, Carl Michael George – 1991: US military intervention in the Middle East, rising homophobic and racist violence, and the apotheosis of Whitney Houston.

5 Printed Matter | 195 Tenth Avenue | 11AM – 8PM, continuous loop.
Nayland & AA, June 20, 2001 (Coat), Nayland Blake and AA Bronson – A three channel video that, on two separate screens, depicts the artists smearing one another’s faces with vanilla and chocolate frosting; a third screen shows both faces and frosting melding together as the two kiss.

6 Cinema Village | 22 East 12th Street | 11:59PM
The Queen, Frank Simon – This legendary film is one of the earliest documentations of a drag ball, judged by Andy Warhol and featuring Flawless Sabrina and Crystal LaBeija. Flawless Sabrina in attendance! Screening in honor of Marsha P. Johnson.

7 QUEERLATES at The Spectrum | 59 Montrose Avenue, Brooklyn | 4PM – 6PM
Fast Twitch / Slow Twitch, Heather Cassils – The artist documents her physical transformation while engaging in a strict bodybuilding regimen in a two-channel video installation.

8 Washington Square Park | Greenwich Village | 9PM
Social Movement, Emily Roysdon – Utilizing several participants, a stage is created, framed, and imaged with repetitive gestures and poses.

9 The W Hotel | 1567 Broadway | 9PM
OAK Presents It’s A Jackie Thing, Charles Atlas – A document of the drag scene at Jackie 60, where impersonators included Martha Graham, Kurt Cobain and Sid Vicious, lip-syncing to Nancy Sinatra.

10 The Out NYC | 510 West 42nd Street | 9PM
A One Man Show, Jean Paul Goude – A performance video of the most contemporary caliber, Grace Jones’ Grammy nominated video tape is unparalleled in its aesthetic integrity, post-modern performativity and ferocity. RSVP required.

11 Barracuda | 275 W. 22nd Street | 6PM – 12AM, continuous loop.
The Galactic Pot Healer, Shana Moulton– After breaking her favorite ceramic pot, a woman receives several messages from her medicine cabinet guiding her to the Galactic Pot Healer. (6PM – 12AM)

12Abrons Art Center at the Henry Street Settlement | 466 Grand Street | 8:00PM
(are we and/or do we) LIKE MEN, Pier Marton, in collaboration with Wendy Ultan and Glenn Biegon – Based on his experiences at the National Conference on Men and Masculinity, Marton interviews men on gender conditioning.

13 Abrons Art Center at the Henry Street Settlement | 466 Grand Street | 8:30PM
Cobra Woman, Robert Siodmak with Jungle Island, Jack Smith – The ravishing Queen of Technicolor, Maria Montez shines in a double role for this camp tale of island peril, paired with Jack Smith’s closest approximation of the Montez aesthetic, starring Mario Montez.

14 Metropolitan | 559 Lorimer Street, Brooklyn

11PM – 4AM
We are Gag!, The Gay and Lesbian Community with Gag! – A new commission in nightlife social practice that examines the role of cinema on the construction of queer identity and learned social behavior through video projections of its patrons, dancing, debauchery, and mirrored masks.

15 Uncle Charlie’s Downtown (former site)

56 Greenwich Avenue | 2PM – 6PM, continuous loop.
Joan Does Dynasty, Joan Braderman – An interactive critical analysis of one of television’s most iconic and controversial primetime series.

16 The Phoenix | 447 E. 13th Street | 7PM
Jerovi, José Rodríguez-Soltero – A young man makes love, first to a rose and then to himself, in a lush, stylized landscape, in this dreamlike celebration of narcissistic desire. Also featuring readings of post-humously published poetry by porn actor Roy Garrett, in collaboration with Spunk arts magazine.

17 The Westway | 75 Clarkson Street | 8:30PM
Gayletter Presents SweetBerry Sonnet (Remixed), Kalup Linzy – Linzy remixes his video compilation SweetBerry Sonnet, woven together as music videos performed by a recurring cast of characters, including Taiwan and Labisha, and created in conjunction with his full-length album from 2008 of the same name.

18 The Cock | 29 2nd Avenue | 10PM – 4AM
Cock Gobblin’, Peter Cramer and Jack Waters – A mash-up of décor installation & film made especially for the cock that encapsulates darkroom debauch, presenting sexy old and sexy new.

19 Andrew Edlin Gallery | 134 Tenth Ave | 6 – 8PM
The Salad Days of Art Video Disco, Various Stars – There comes a moment in every person’s life when they realize that what they made that one time was pretty good. But maybe weird.

20 Peter Rabbit’s (former site) | 10th Street and West Side Highway | 2PM – 6PM, continuous loop.
Anthem, Marlon Riggs – One of Marlon Riggs’s final works—a deeply personal work using the visual language of music videos as a political platform.

21 The Kitchen | 512 West 19th Street | 7PM
NYC PREMIERE! This Is Not A Dream, Gavin Butt & Ben Walters – A new documentary, highlighting artists use of video as a platform for broadcast and world creation. Featuring Dickie Beau, Dara Birnbaum, Nao Bustamante, Vaginal Davis, and the Divine David.

22 Nowhere | 322 E. 14th Street | 4PM – 4AM, continuous loop
Splatter Movie, Mike Kuchar – “Sex, sleaze, drugs, blood, and much, much more!”

23 Julius’ | 159 West 10th Street | 4PM – 4AM, continuous loop
Tearoom, William E. Jones – Surveillance footage shot by police over the course of a 1962 crackdown on public gay sex in Mansfield, Ohio.

24XL Cabaret and Lounge + The Out NYC | 510 West 22nd Street | 8PM / 9:30PM
The Color of Love, Peggy Ahwesh +Colt, Deanna Erdmann – Working from 80s gay male pornography, Erdmann intercuts a pulsating procession of sexual scenarios and cultural signifiers in this looped installation work, while Ahwesh adds her own marks and manipulations to found and decayed amateur 8mm porn footage featuring two women and a curiously unresponsive man.

25 Judson Memorial Church | 55 Washington Square South | 8:30PM
Blue, Derek Jarman – This monochrome blue projection chronicles Jarman’s AIDS infection with voiceover assistance from Tilda Swinton, Nigel Terry, and other collaborators.

26 Maysles Cinema | 343 Malcolm X Boulevard / Lenox Avenue | 7:30PM
Portrait of Jason, Shirley Clarke – Sexuality, race and class collide in Clarke’s fascinating and problematic film portrait of sometime gay hustler Jason Hallyday.

27 Adonis Theatre | 8th Avenue and 43rd Street | 10:45AM – 12AM
Loads, Curt McDowell – Pull up a chair at one of our most site-specific events. So specific, that you must RSVP in advance at dirtylooksnyc@gmail.com.

28Flamingo Club (former site) | 219 East 2nd Ave. | 2 – 6PM, continuous loop
She Don’t Fade, Cheryl Dunye – A candid portrait of black lesbianism by “New Queer Wave” filmmaker, Cheryl Dunye.

29 Le Petit Versailles | 346 East Houston Street | 7:30PM
Hail the New Puritan, Charles Atlas – This exhilarating and unclassifiable portrait of dancer Michael Clark is an immersion in the music, art and fashion of the 80s London queer underground.

30Eastern Bloc | 505 East 6th Street #1 | 10PM – 4AM
Various Titles, Fred Halsted – Halsted’s films are the only hardcore titles in the permanent collection at MoMA. Features include LA Plays Itself, A Night At Halsted’s and films in which Halsted appeared as an actor.

31 Heather’s | 506 East 13th Street | 10PM – 2AM
YOUTUBE XXXtrava-GANZA, Teams – Remember back in the day when Queer Eye was a “thing” – and the fact that it was a hit was a gigantic surprise? Now everyone loves RuPaul. How has that media breakthrough of gay cultural presence trickled down to YouTube.

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Wednesday, July 27 8:30 p.m. Silvershed, 119 West 25th Street PH New York, NY 10001 These distinct, experimental works take stars and other filmmakers as their starting point; working with found footage or reportage style camera work, these seven filmmakers … Continue reading

Posted on by Earl Dax | Leave a comment